Article ID: | iaor20042870 |
Country: | Netherlands |
Volume: | 145 |
Issue: | 1 |
Start Page Number: | 72 |
End Page Number: | 84 |
Publication Date: | Feb 2003 |
Journal: | European Journal of Operational Research |
Authors: | Jacobson Sheldon H., Sewell Edward C., Henderson Darrall, Vaughan Diane E., Wakefield Ron. R. |
Keywords: | heuristics, optimization: simulated annealing |
This paper introduces the shortest route cut and fill problem (SRCFP). The SRCFP is an NP-hard discrete optimization problem for leveling a construction project site, where the objective is to find a vehicle route that minimizes the total distance traveled by a single earthmoving vehicle between cut and fill locations. An optimal vehicle route is a route that minimizes the total haul distance that a single earthmoving vehicle travels. Simulated annealing algorithms are formulated to address the SRCFP. To assess the effectiveness of simulated annealing on the SRCFP, a greedy algorithm is constructed to compute an upper bound and the Held–Karp 1–tree lower bound is used to compute a lower bound. Extensive computational results are reported using several randomly generated instances of the SRCFP.